Church On Mission: Sent
About this series:
The opening lines or pages of a book are often designed to set the context for all that follows. For example:
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair’ (A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens).
‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen’ (1984, George Orwell).
The same is true of the Bible. The opening pages set the stage for all that follows; it’s long, unfolding story can invariably be traced back to these scenes. In particular, we see God eternally existing and then choosing to create all there is out of nothing. He commissions mankind - the pinnacle of his creation, made in his image - to, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule…” (Genesis 1:28). Then sin enters the world and there follows a spiralling downward away from harmony with God and with people. And yet there is the gospel promise of Genesis 3:15.
And then, following a restating (to Noah) of the commission to, “be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it” and the establishing of a covenant (Genesis 9:1-11), we’re introduced to Abram (from Genesis 11:26), called by God to become the one through whom he will accomplish the mission given to mankind and through whom God’s intended blessing of mankind will come about.
This series is designed to explore a few points in the biblical journey that flows from these opening scenes in the Bible, the story of how God’s blessing will fill the earth. It’s clearly only a very few of the many stages on that journey that we could talk about, but they will serve to show how God’s people have always been on mission and how the church today is still on mission today.
Importantly, it is God’s mission. Christopher Wright has said, ‘God doesn’t have a mission for his church, he has a church for his mission.’ God’s intent has always been to fill the earth with his blessing and his people have always been his means for bringing that to pass. It’s important that we have an understanding of the biblical storyline and that we see our involvement as being in God’s mission rather than imagining that we are asking God to bless our mission.
This eight-part series will begin with three practical steps we can all engage with in order to become people on mission - Prayer, Care and Share. These three words represent vital practical elements of a missional lifestyle and they contain a logical progression too. Please keep these three words in mind as we work through the series, especially as ways to apply what’s being said - for example:
What does it look like to be sent? Prayer, care & share.
How can we still be on mission against all the odds? Prayer, care & share.
About this talk:
Jesus told his disciples they were to go (Matthew 28:19) as light (Matthew 5:14-16), as witnesses (Luke 24:48) empowered by his Spirit (Acts 1:8). Elsewhere in the New Testament, Jesus’ disciples are said to be entrusted with the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:4) and ambassadors of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). All of which requires that his followers be sent, which he says specifically in John 20:21: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
The two words translated here as “sent” and “sending” are not the same, though ‘nothing should be made of the change, as if the clue to the verse lay in two kinds of ‘sending’’ (D. A. Carson). Interestingly, in a previous mention of this parallel sending, John records Jesus using the same words each time for ‘sent’: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” Carson’s comment should be noted here too.
So what does it mean for Jesus’ disciples to be sent “as” the Father sent him? That little word “as” implies that there are parallels between the sending of Jesus and our being sent by him. It clearly cannot mean that we are being sent to accomplish the same saving work that Jesus was sent to do, nor that his mission has come to an end, with our mission now replacing his. Rather, his disciples are sent to continue the mission that Jesus inaugurated in the sense of making known what he has accomplished. If his mission was to effect reconciliation between God and mankind through the forgiveness of sins, then we are being sent to make that same mission known (see v 23). If he was sent in the power of the Spirit, we too are being sent in his power (see v 22; cf. Acts 1:8). If he was sent as the light for all nations, we are also being sent to bring that light to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8; cf. Matthew 24:14). And just as he was faithful to his calling, so we are to be too - ‘Just as Jesus represented the Father faithfully and obediently, so they are to represent Jesus faithfully and obediently and spread the message of forgiveness and salvation in him’ (Andreas Kӧstenberger).
To know that we have been sent by Christ himself brings both great dignity and great responsibility to our part in God’s mission. Great dignity because we could not be sent with greater authority (see Matthew 28:18); great responsibility because we could not have been sent with a greater message (see 2 Corinthians 5:20-21).
As we go, one of the important things to remember is that inputs, not outputs, are our responsibility. Our task is to love, to befriend, to speak when we have opportunity, to pray, care and share. We then trust that God is working ‘at the other end’ to accomplish his purposes, as C. H. Spurgeon illustrates: ‘When the Mont Cenis Tunnel was being constructed through the Alps, a party of engineers worked from the Italian side for six years, and expected at the end of that period to see an open roadway through the mountain. They knew that the work would take, at the rate they were going, at least twelve years, and yet they knew it would be completed in six years, because there was another party, on the French side, working to meet them; and, accordingly, in due time they met one another within an inch of the planned location. I cannot understand these miracles of engineering, and do not know how two tunnelling parties manage to meet each other in the heart of an mountain; neither do I know how the Lord’s work in the consciences of men and women will fit in with mine, but I am quite sure it will, and, therefore, in faith, I go on working with all my might.’
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